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A Master of Creative Anachronism

THE story that ricocheted around the Internet and appeared in gossip columns in mid-November goes like this: Jenna and Barbara Bush, Secret Service men in tow, visited a crowded Lower East Side restaurant named Freeman's and were told they could not be accommodated.

"How long is the wait?" one of the president's twin daughters is rumored to have asked.

"Four more years," came the response, at which the restaurant erupted like a Howard Dean rally and tossed back a round of shots.

Despite the whiff of obvious hyperbole, most downtown establishments would welcome the buzz spawned by such a tale. But Freeman's -- concealed down an alley off Rivington Street, with taxidermy on the walls and a clientele that includes well-maintained retirees sitting next to tattooed punk fans -- prefers not to seek attention.

Last Monday morning Taavo Somer, 31, the restaurant's founder, arrived at work early to help draft a statement for its Web site. Headed "Statement Regarding the Internet Rumors," it neither confirmed nor denied the visit by the twins but said no derogatory remarks were made, adding that the first family would be welcome at any time. In an interview that day, Mr. Somer said the Bush daughters had visited but were simply told there was no room that evening.

Therein lies the paradox of Freeman's, one of downtown's hot new scenes, but one that likes to project a small-D democratic atmosphere. Mr. Somer, an architect by training, became known two years ago for the rock parties he gave at the Pussycat Lounge.

He designs a line of fake vintage T-shirts with phrases like "Emotionally Unavailable," which sell for $88 at Barneys and about 90 other stores. The restaurant applies his brand of ironic mystery to a new setting.

Of course the authenticity is fake. The dings and cracks in the wall were created by chains, not age. The drink Napoleon's Blood on the bar menu -- Courvoisier Cognac mixed with crème de cassis -- bears no connection to Napoleon. Like the creative writing center and the pirate shop opened by the novelist Dave Eggers in San Francisco, Freeman's is a deliberate reach back in time to connect with those who disdain the shiny and new in favor of an idealized form of the worn and very old.

The crowd at Freeman's one Friday night in mid-November seemed to enjoy the mix. A man wearing nylon track pants and a sport coat, and smoking a pipe, walked by Mr. Somer and said, "Nice meeting you." An older couple in cashmere sat near the head of a deer, nibbling on what looked like venison, while a band of scruffy hipsters smoked cigarettes outside.

Danya Berman, 34, visiting from Los Angeles with friends who knew the headwaiter, said she was impressed with the "earthy food," the wine list and the atmosphere. "Anybody who puts wild boar on the menu and the wall gets points," she said.

Serge Becker, who has spent 20 years designing popular nightspots, from Area in the 1980's to Joe's Pub, described Mr. Somer as the kind of visionary who appears only once in a decade.

"He is a slacker rock 'n' roll dandy," Mr. Becker said. "Instead of obsessing about cuff links he obsesses about denim stitching. His style is nostalgic in a romantic way, but it also cherishes accidents and flaws, the unplanned, the immediate and personal."

It is also a form of rebellion. When Mr. Somer arrived in New York in August 2000, he had spent more than five years as an architect in Minneapolis. He had lined up a job in Manhattan with Steven Holl Associates, a firm known for advanced design.

But after a few months the work struck him as antiseptic, part of "this cultlike dedication to minimalism," he said, sipping a morning coffee at Freeman's, while staff members answered near-continuous calls for reservations, which are only accepted for six or more. On a busy night the wait can be more than an hour.

Mr. Somer was less interested in a structure's form than in how it affects people. He said that he was nostalgic for the look and feel of his favorite bar in Minneapolis, the Loring, where he had logged hundreds of hours as an architecture student at the University of Minnesota.

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"It was a bohemian hangout," he recalled, "where you had older people, young people, Eurotrash, everything. They had food, drinks and even a ballet company. It was this circus freak show of life."

Mr. Somer quit Mr. Holl's firm after only six months, abandoning architecture. He asked Mr. Becker for a job as a busboy and eventually accepted a semipermanent gig helping with Mr. Becker's restaurant and club design and construction work.

In the summer of 2001 he started printing T-shirts with the phrases he used to scrawl in felt-tip pen on his own T-shirts. "Trust Fund" came first, followed by "Emotionally Unavailable."

"They were social satire," said Mr. Somer, who seems to spend most of his time in jeans, a rumpled shirt and a black velvet sport coat. " 'My Girlfriend Is Out of Town' is a joke about how women are more attracted to you if you have a girlfriend."

Social frustration also led to parties. Mr. Somer said he hated New York's focus on lounges that seem as cold as the academic architecture he sought to avoid. Starting in the summer of 2002 he and his friend Carlos Quirarte began to give Saturday night events at the Pussycat Lounge. Downstairs there were strippers behind plexiglass. Upstairs there were old couches.

Mr. Somer designed invitations and printed them on things like dollar bills and pages ripped out of pornography magazines.

"The first one has 40 or 50 people," Mr. Quirarte recalled. "Then the next week it was full."

Freeman's started as a party, too. Mr. Somer planned to give a Halloween bash last year, complete with midgets and fire-eaters. But after seeing the space on Freeman Alley, he canceled the event in favor of something more permanent.

He had a few models in mind: the secret societies frequented by the founding fathers, the butcher shop of Daniel Day-Lewis's character in "The Gangs of New York," his old hangout, the Loring. What they all shared was rustic ornament and detail.

The construction cost only about $70,000 because Mr. Somer employed friends. When his door was tagged with graffiti, he recognized the artist as an acquaintance and hired him.

The restaurant's ironic primitivism is not new to New York nightlife. Michael Musto, the Village Voice columnist, noted that Freeman's had predecessors, including the Mudd Club, "an antiglitz dive located on a Godforsaken downtown street," and M. K., a club designed by Eric Goode and Mr. Becker, which opened in 1989 with a roomful of stuffed Dobermans and animal bones.

He said that Freeman's is doing something slightly different by combining these elements with a culinary twist. "I've certainly never known wild boar to be a trendy dish," Mr. Musto said.

But can the sensibility survive?

After only three months, Mr. Somer's "secret" bar and restaurant is already a favorite among the trust fund kids he once criticized, despite the $8 macaroni and cheese and other moderate-price items. He acknowledges that the original soul of his T-shirts has been lost. What is to stop Freeman's from becoming kitsch, another theme restaurant?

Mr. Somer has a few ideas. He is building a private room out back with space for a table for 12, so regulars will always have a place. He is also considering outings. "We could have a formal, cocktail party in the mountains, with very old cocktails," he said. "Or maybe skeet shooting somewhere upstate."

To those who share Mr. Somer's sensibility, these ideas sound terrifically wacky. As a solution, though, they also sound elitist. Would the Bush twins be allowed to go hunting? It seems unlikely.

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A version of this article appears in print on November 28, 2004, on Page 9009012 of the National edition with the headline: A Master of Creative Anachronism. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe